One day, the people in authority will give up their personal corruption ideals and instead take the very well experienced expertise of international welfare groups who promote sterilisation as the only real way to reduce both owned and stray animal numbers.

Watch the video and please feel for the pathetic individuals in authority who fail to recognise that they are going down the wrong road to reducing animal numbers in preference for their own financial gain and status.

People in authority such as this are cowards. They do not deserve any respect – in fact they deserve nothing but the abuse that we and many others give them. This video will justify our side of the argument that long term stray sterilisation and a proper no kill management plane needs to be established by the authorities right now.

So called ‘politicians’ and authoritarians who fail to accept and do what is right are nothing more than self interest thickheads. Thickheads such as these are not wanted as members of the European Union.

We are forwarding this video to members of the EU; to the EU Animal Welfare Intergroup, and also to press and media across Europe.

Unfortunately for many people; especially many in Europe, and also those in the USA; the video is not in English – but it does not need to be in another way – the excellent filming shows the reality of Balkans stray animal suffering at the hands of CORRUPT OFFICIALS which spread throughout the political system like a well oiled disease. Corrupt officials who are not welcomed in any way by ourselves and who we will endeavour to keep out of the EU.

If there is one film that sums up the good and the bad side of Balkans stray animal issues; this is it. Watch, rage and repent – but enjoy the good parts also.

Full respect to the good, caring and compassionate people of the Balkans who re trying to do the right thing for animals the political corruption and self interest which seems to run rampant through the political system. A bent and corrupt system.

Slovenia is year to year becoming a slaughterhouse for bears, which are considered as endangered species. This is unacceptable. What you can do immediately is to contribute your voice to bears and wolves.

You also can write to the Government of the Republic of Slovenia on the attached mails.

Petition has been translated into German, English, French, Russian, Spanish, Croatian, Serbian and Italian and can be found on our website http://www.osvoboditev-zivali.org/ with the intention to inform the widest possible world public about what is happening at us.

On behalf of the animals, please inform acquaintances, friends, clubs, groups around the world, in order to collect as many signatures as possible.

Stanko Valpatič, president

Society for the Liberation of Animals and Their Rights
The Society for the Rights and Liberation of Animals, India
Ostrožno in Ponikvi 26, 3232 Ponikva
Tel.: +386 (0) 3 303 5763, Mobile: 031 709 306 Martin
The association is entitled to grant 0.5% of personal income.
Tax number: 68844930
Bank account: 02011-0253228311
International account: IBAN: SI56 0201 1025 3228 311
The Association has the status of a society acting in the public interest.
Together we are building Slovenia, friendly to animals, nature and people.

we have now decided to support this with a petition, the full wording of which follows at the end of this post.

The petition finsihes by declaring:

“Signators of this petion request that Commissioner Rehn now fully investigates if there is actually any animal welfare legislation enforcement by Balkans states requiring EU membership prior to them being granted official EU membership. Or is animal welfare legislation implementation simply being ignored.

We request the implementation of ‘democracy’ and the ‘rule of law’ for all animal welfare issues within Balkans states at all times prior to their EU Accession. Where this is not happening, we rquest the EU demands it prior to accession”.

The petition is global, international and open to everyone – please support it.

We would especially though love to see lots of support from existing EU citizens; Commissioner Rehn is supposed to be a representative of the EU citizen, so let him know how EU citizens feel about this issue.

Please finish and comment you leave on the petition with wording like:

“I am an existing EU citizen, and I request that the EU Enlargement Commissioner acts on behalf of EU citizens and Balkans Animals”.

Several Balkans states are now seeking either full membership (Accession) to the European Union (EU), or are attempting stronger links with the EU.

These include: Republic of Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, Bosnia
and Herzegovina, Croatia and Kosovo.

Serbian Animals Voice (SAV) has been campaigning for the improved welfare of Balkans animals for several years. We have extensive experience and data relating to the terrible daily suffering inflicted on animals, despite existing Balkan states national legislation which should legally prevent much of this. There is very little evidence to show political and municipal authority enforcement of animal welfare legislation. – details of this on a ‘nation by nation’ basis can be seen via our site at https://serbiananimalsvoice.wordpress.com/

In October 2009, SAV wrote to Commissioner Olli Rehn; EU Commissioner for Enlargement, expressing our deep concerns regarding an apparent lack of existing national animal welfare legislation implementation and enforcement by governments throughout the Balkan states.

Over 25 ‘prime’ evidence links from the SAV site were provided to Commissioner Rehn, each of these containing many ‘sub’ links, showing extreme Balkans animal suffering video footage which relate to our concerns. A few examples are shown in the following links –

We have expressed our concerns to the Commissioner, that even when provided with such evidence, clearly showing extreme animal abuses, nothing with regard investigation and prosecution is being followed up by the Balkans authorities to press charges; to enforce (the) often existing national animal welfare legislation. In Serbia for example, the Public Attorney appears to be dismissing all evidence provided by animal welfare campaigners; instead, they themselves are themselves being accused of “obstructing them (the Public Attorney) from getting on with their legal work”.

In our letter, we have reminded Commissioner Rehn that (on his website) his very own words declare:

“The European Union currently has 27 Member States. The Western Balkan countries, Turkey and Iceland may also join once they meet the conditions for membership. The aim of enlargement is simple: to extend the area of peace, stability, democracy and the rule of law, and prosperity and well-being throughout Europe”.

We draw particular attention to the statement by Commissioner Rehn of – “democracy and the rule of law”, as it is felt that despite Serbian animal welfare campaigners providing large amounts of evidence to Serbian legislators, no action appears to ever be taken by Serbian authorities to apply ‘the rule of law’ – a fundamental condition necessary for EU membership.

If no action (in the form of prosecutions against animal cruelty) is being shown to be taken by Serbian legislators following the production of evidence and documented requests by animal welfare campaigners, then we declare that Serbia is not meeting some of the necessary and fundamental aims of EU enlargement – with regard showing the implementation of both ‘democracy’ (ie. requests by animal welfare campaigners) and the ‘rule of law’ (ie. by not prosecuting perpetrators of causing animal suffering), even when evidence is provided.

As a consequence, Signators of this petion request that Commissioner Rehn now fully investigates if there is actually any animal welfare legislation enforcement by Balkans states requiring EU membership prior to them being granted official EU membership. Or is animal welfare legislation implementation simply being ignored.

We request the implementation of ‘democracy’ and the ‘rule of law’ for all animal welfare issues within Balkans states at all times prior to their EU Accession. Where this is not happening, we rquest the EU demands it prior to accession.

Here you will find many photographs of the current situation at the City pound death camp, Loznica, located in Serbia.

These pictures show just a selection of the thousands of animals killed every year by the government and its authorities, as they do in all Serbian towns and cities.

And where are the photograsphs of all the CATS (Feline) which are rounded up by the authorities ? – they are not shown because all the cats are killed immediately after their capture. The Serbian government and authorities do not place cats into their pounds; they kill them immediately.

Leskovac City policy could be used by the Serbian government and authorities as a typical example of the way forward for animal population control. A model city without animal killings; which could set the standard for all Serbian municipalities. Leskovac City is an example that this policy of humane animal welfare could be adopted throughout Serbia; but we are witnessing no further evidence of any attempts to do it.

As with Leskovac City, only by public education programmes, adopting a policy of responsible animal ownership by pet owners, by sterilising animals from the municipal budget, hence reducing drastically the reproduction pyramids that we have always shown, and giving every animal a microchip identification tag, to enable irresponsible owners to be traced, will results in a reduction of animal numbers, and a saving of municpal budgets ever be achieved.

Financially targetting irresponsible pet owners who do not have their pet sterilised, but still turn them out onto the streets every day to reproduce and again ADD to the reproduction pyramids, is a must.

Pet owners must be responsible owners; not be owners who continually add to the reproduction pyramids simply because they do not care what their animal (pet) gets up to when they turn it out every day onto the streets.

By controlling pet and stray animal numbers, municpalities will find rewards in their budgetary allocations. Large Shinter teams will not be required to round up animals – a financial saving; money that can be redirected into covering costs for sterilisation of animals in cities.

Only when the Serbian government really takes action and makes all Serbian cities and towns run along the same policies of those at Leskovac City, will the government ever see any return for the money it is currently wasting by pouring it into the bottomless barrel that supports their ‘Kill’ policy.

There is currently NO DIFFERENCE between the government / municipality policy within any Balkans states – one of continually killing animals in any location rather than making attemps to reduce animal numbers by:

Sterilisation

Responsible ownership education

Vaccination against disease(s)

Microchipping – to enable irresponsible pet owners to be identified and prosecuted.

Microchipping – to establish a database to monitor animal numbers.

Balkans states which have a policy of avoiding the above, and who continue wasting budgets on continual animal killing include:

In all towns and cities throughout Balkans states, dogs and cats are continually being killed by governments who have no forward sight or planning. Governments who appear to enjoy wasting public money rather than investing the same money into sterilisation, vaccination and microchipping identification programmes, all of which would help them to reduce animal numbers whilst at the same time help them identify (by the microchips) irresponsible owners who are adding to the the pouplation pyramids by NOT having their animals sterilised.

Our campaigning continues regardless; and will, until government policy is changed to a national ‘No Kill’ policy.

We will continue to show video and photographic evidence of the daily suffering of animals within Balkans states by governments who are shortsighted and lack any long term animal welfare planning.

And we will continue to request that a very reluctant European Union (EU) actually moves forward also, undertakes what its citizens request, and actaully introduces Euro-wide legislation for the potection of pet and stray animals.

The EU is in a position where it could largely eliminate the future European ‘problems’ in some member states of stray animal numbers by introducing pet and stray animal welfare legislation very soon / immediately.

Constitutional Court of the Republic of Slovenia consented the initiative of The society for the rights and liberation of animals and nullified the execution of the brown bears.

Althought in Slovenia the brown bears are endangered species and therefore protected by Habitat Convention of EU as well as by slovene Decree on protected wild animal species, there was set the annual quota by the Minister of the Environment and Spatial Planning of the Republic of Slovenia in years 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008 (Rules on the taking of brown bear (Ursus arctos) from the wild ).

Althought it is not known, how many bears there are in Slovenia, the Minister for example ordered to execute 75 bears in 2008, for the previous year even 100.

In years 2005, 2006 and 2007 there were approximately 300 bears executed, which is absurd, because we talk about the endangered species.

In the opinion of our Society those execution were illegal, because there weren’t given the conditions defined in Habitat Convention as well as there weren’t given conditions defined in slovene Decree on protected wild animal species for the intervention into the population of bears.

Intervention, as well as the execution of bears is namely acceptable if there is no alternative and if that doesn’t harm the preservation of favourable condition of the population of brown bear. Naturally, there also have to be given examples, listed in both of the previously mentioned law acts, when the intervention into he population is possible ( example: causing serious damage, assuring public health and safety, ..).

According to the opinion of our Society, in Slovenia none of these conditions were given and that makes the execution of bears illiegal.

Because of the execution of bears in opposition to the Habitat Convention and slovene Decree on protected wild animal species, we made an initiative to Constitutional Court of the Republic of Slovenia in years 2006, 2007 and 2008 to estimate constitutionality and legality of rule, that set the annual quota of bears for execution. We also made an initiative to estimate constitutionality and legality of the Decree on changes and amendments to the Decree on protected wild animal species (OJ RS No. 84/05), that was the law basis for issuing the rule mentioned in previous sentence.

In initiatives, we stated number of violations of the regulations as well as the violation of the procedure of accepting both acts.

One of the violations we blame them for is, that the procedure of accepting both acts wasn’t in accordance with Aarhus Convention, that obliges Slovenia as well and defines the right to access to information on environment, possibility to participate in procedures of deciding and free access to means of law.

Constitutional Court confirmed our reproach ( Decree no. U-I-386/06-32 dated 13th of March 2008 ). The Constitutional Court also decided that The Environment Protection Law is incompatible with slovene Constitution, because it doesn’t regulates the participation of public into the procedure of preparing sub-law regulations, that are issued in connection with protected animal specie.

Because of that, they also annulated Decree on protected wild animal species and Rules on the taking of brown bear (Ursus arctos) from the wild. The recall starts to produce effort 3 months after affirmation of the law, by which the slovene parliament shall abolish mentioned incompatibility between The Envoronment Protection Law and the Constitution.

The efficiency of annulation of rule, that defines the execution of bears shall unfortunately be valid only in a couple of months. Many believe, that this means that in Slovenia, by that time the execution, ordered by the Minister of the Environment and Spatial Planning is still possible – Rules for 2008.

According to stated, in Slovenia, there could be executed 10, 20, 30 or more bears.

This is the reason why we addressed to The Government of The Republic of Slovenia, to The Minister of the Environment and Spatial Planning and to The Slovenian Hunting Associationan appeal to immediately stop the execution of bears in Slovenia.

We believe it is illogical to use a regulation, that was recalled, inspite of the fact that the result of recalling is posponed for a while.

If we use a regulation, that was recalled, we could endanger the whole law structure of the state, because we believe, only incontestable general law acts can be used.

This means valid regulations, not recalled ones. The ones that are not incompatible with Constitution and similar.

In any case it is extremely unethical to use recalled regulations whether we talk about endangered specie or not.

It is becoming more and more clear, that lives of people are indivisibly connected with lives of animals and that the bad situation of animals is not in peoples’ interest.

It is known, that for example cattle-breeding is the biggest threat to environment and one of the largest destroyers of the climate, because emissions of harmful gases produced by cattle-breeding are much larger than emissions of the whole traffic in the world ( FAO report ).

We know also, that climate changes are bigger threat to the society than for example terrorism.

If all the people were vegetarians, we could control climate changes, says english physicist Alan Calverd.

And not only that – there would be much less civilization diseases, because it is proved, that meat is the risk factor for many civilization diseases.

According to written, we ask all who are interesed, to support our appeal for instant interruption of execution of bears and therefore to intervene at The Government of The Republic of Slovenia, at The Minister of the Environment and Spatial Planning and at The Slovenian Hunting Association.